blood sausage and hot chocolate

Getting to Lyon took a long time. I left Fes at 9am, and after the train rides to Casa, the flight to Lyon, and the bus rides into town, I didn’t arrive to Karoline’s place until 10:30pm. It was still an action-packed day. Among its highlights was a verbal tiff between two girls upon disembarking the plane, made more interesting by the fact it played out over my lap. Lows included the discovery that my SIM card (so that I could use my phone in France to call my host) was nowhere to be found, and my profuse sweating in the heat of the terminal while trying to finagle my luggage to appear (through magic) as though it wasn’t indeed 5kg over the limit.

I had arranged to couchsurf in Lyon with a wonderful Norwegian student, Karoline, as it didn’t make sense to take the train straight to Geneva so late at night. I was greeted with hospitality becoming that of a Moroccan: as I was too late for a proper dinner at a bouchon, she and her roommate had stayed up, and pizzas were going into the oven as I finally walked in the door. We stayed up chatting and drinking some decent local wine. The next day I hiked up to the big farmers’ market and bought enough cheese and cured meats to feed eight as a main course. I left some for my hosts, but happily dragged the rest through Europe.

Karoline accompanied me to lunch at Café des Federations, a bouchon (a Lyonnais bistrot, for lack of a better term) I had thoroughly enjoyed during my last visit to town. It was as good as I remembered it—the pigs’ cheeks were outstanding, as was the boudin noir (blood sausage). The cheeses were everything I had been craving during my visit in Morocco. Everything was so good that I missed my train to Geneva—easy enough to fix thanks to Europe’s fast and frequent trains.

First order in Geneva, after finding my friend Zoe, was to find a place to sleep and park my 70lbs worth of bags (my couchsurfing efforts had gone without success in Geneva). It was getting late, and the hostel had a complet (no vacancy) sign on the door. I borrowed a trick from The Secret (a super-cheesy self-help book/video) that EB and Whitney had taught me, and walked in the door anyway, believing there would be a bed for me. There was; I have decided that for my next trick, I’m going to have a Tahitian island to call my own.

Armed with my cheese and Zoe’s wine and bread, we headed for the lakefront, where we’d meet another friend of hers and feast on the awe-inspiring bounty. It was a delightful evening, despite the wind, the unique piece of fresh brebis that sadly landed in the lake, and the nesting duck that snapped at me on my way to a makeshift toilet. A fantastic hot shower awaited me at the hostel, but so did an amazingly stinky, stuffy room (the leftover cheese went with Zoe to her fridge).

I spent my next day calmly wandering and sightseeing (in that order). I sampled raclette (cheese toasted by a fire, served with boiled potatoes) and some of the local (hot) chocolat. We attended a slightly pompous, but nonetheless interesting, lecture on one man’s proposed solution for the conflict between Israel and the Arabs. And then for some more local color, a birthday (I think) picnic on the lakefront, with some more wine and my cheese (no, still not sick of it). The evening took an interesting turn when I embarked barhopping on a three hour tour with Arnaud (a chap who was looking to end up spending time with one of the girls at the picnic, but somehow ended up with me instead) and his hotelier friends.

I shopped at the market and cooked Friday lunch for Zoe and her 10 year-old host sister, treasuring the mushrooms, artichokes, and asparagus. I have to say, though, that the highlight of my time in Geneva was easily the housewarming-come-dance party that Jere took us to on Friday night. There we were, minding our beer and sausages, when out came the fiddle (okay, violin) and accordion. What ensued was quite a bit of floor shaking and an all-around great time (click on the picture and check out the videos). As it turns out, they just play for fun (and occasional cash): the two young ladies making the music are botanical biologists by day. Though I breeze over this evening, it really made the trip that much more memorable.

Before running to barely catch the train the next morning, Zoe and I detoured to visit Les Schtroumphs, an old housing development named after The Smurfs for the Gaudiesque design—a worthless diversion. While I did sing the theme song for a bit, the real musical kicker came to me on the ride to Munich—lush green fields and a hum that went something like, the fields are alive / with the sound of music.